UCITS HFS Index starts 2013 with positive January return of 1.20%

Opalesque Industry Update - The UCITS HFS Index reported the highest monthly gains since January 2012 and is up 1.20% for January 2013. The broad index started positive into the new year with a performance of 0.63% after the first days of trading. Although things slowed down in the second week (0.03%), gains of 0.43% and 0.19% in week three and four respectively secured a positive January result. Therefore a loss of -0.09% in the last days of trading did not have too much impact on the overall good start into 2013. From all funds tracked in the UCITS HFS Index 69.73% reported profits in January 2013.

From a sub-strategy perspective ten out of the twelve sub-strategies reported positive results in January, the best performing being L/S Equity (+3.08%), Convertible (+2.20%) and CTA (+1.89%). While the latter two reported positive results week after week, L/S Equity took a minor hit in week two only to pick up the speed thereafter to finish with one of its strongest monthly results. The two strategies that took losses in January were Arbitrage (-0.53%) and Credit (-0.03%). While the first accumulated losses constantly throughout the month, the latter just turned negative in the last days of trading. This is noteworthy as Credit was the only strategy besides Fixed Income with back-to-back positive monthly results in 2012. As the broad UCITS HFS Index finished last year with a performance of 3.55%, an early year to date performance of 1.20% in 2013 looks like a promising start.